Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Democratic Party implicitly assures its supporters they will “get more than the other guy.” As the article explains, that definitely works on the high end of the economic spectrum. But occasionally the party has to do something for its every-day supporters. Those folks need something more than just words.

When the Democratic Party engages in this kind of activity during an election year, it runs the risk of being characterized as “buying votes.” Its intention might be to simply reward loyalty, but its actions can cause controversy.

A recent example is the tweaking of the Affordable Care Act for the benefit of young women. The Democratic Party wants to give young women free contraceptive services. It might seem opportunistic in some ways, but it does let young American women know that the Democratic Party “has their back.”

On the down side, it causes some religious organizations to think that the Democratic Party is working against their interests. We see the inherent problem of providing political favoritism to individual groups: Rewarding one group might be offensive to another.

The Democratic Party leadership could have chosen to provide young women with free movie tickets, or free pet food, or maybe free cosmetics. They chose contraception as the way to go, and it might very well work out.

The fact that Democrats don't dare to accurately describe their own positions, or the regulations that they want to foist on everyone else, shows how extreme those positions and regulations really are.